Chatting About Britney and Lindsay

There is only one thing worse than being gossiped about, and that is not being gossiped about”.
- Oscar Wilde

This week the National Academy of Sciences published a study that speaks to the power of gossip. The frightening news is that gossip can influence what others think about you (or your company) even when eyewitness accounts refute the gossip. The bottom line: gossip, even unreliable gossip, can be a powerful way to shape or reshape reputations.

Youtube and other social networking sites have made cyber-gossip a multibillion dollar industry. Understanding how to create “buzz” can be the difference between smart, low-cost public relations campaigns and advertising-heavy, big budget campaigns. But knowing how to use the most trendy online gadgets is useless if you don’t understand the essential human nature of social communication, and for that reason it’s a good idea to study the power and the insidious potential of gossip.

This week’s study follows a litany of investigations about the role that gossip plays in our decision-making. Psychology Today writer Robin Westen calls gossip “the social glue that holds us all together”. Author Jack Levin wrote a book about gossip and argues that “its primary function is to help us make social comparisons.” But not all gossip is equal. Kids gossip differently than adults, men tend to gossip differently than women, older adults are impacted by gossip differently than younger adults, and so on. Personality type also plays a role. Dr. Susan Anthony of Gallaudet University studied gossip among the deaf population, and found that “Anxious people are not only more susceptible to gossip, but they’re the ones who will transmit information to a larger number of people”.

Of course gossip runs the gamut from complementary to cruel, but many of the studies published agreed that even neutral gossip can lead to lying. In one experiment conducted by Levin: “researchers posted notices inviting college students to a wedding that never took place…a suprising 12% of the students later questioned claimed to have attended…some even described the wedding dress.”

In the world of communications, managing gossip and rumors can become a critical component to reputation management. For some, gossip becomes word-of-mouth and that can be a powerful marketing strategy. Chrysler created buzz about its new line of cars by lending them to about 6,000 community influentials for a weekend - 98% of those target influentials said they would recommend the cars to their friends. For others gossip can be a malicious and pose a threat to a worthy cause.